Happiness

Last Saturday Daniel and I had the chance to speak to the Young single adults in one of the stakes and districts. they about 150 in attendance. We woke up early Saturday morning because the place where they were staying took about 4 hours to get there and we had to join them around 10:30 a.m. 

There is such a special feeling I get when I speak to the 20 something group of kids. They are so full of life and fun to be around. Here is what I prepared as the message. I prayed and felt I needed to talk to them about Happiness. 

(My Talk to the Young Adults)

I have chosen a topic based on the one thing, I believe, every person on this earth is seeking. What do you think that is?

Let’s go to 2 Nephi 5:27 to find the answer: “And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness.” HAPPINESS!!

Interesting that when you google to find books on happiness you will find that there are about 66,000 books written on happiness which means that there must be a huge market for this topic. Some of those have very catchy titles: The happiness project, Real Happiness at work, Happiness Makeover, Science of Happiness, Your Life Manuel, The Geography of Bliss, The Book of Happiness, The Art of Happiness, written by the Dalai Lama… just to name a few. Wow! Not even one of all those thousands of books written by well- intended people can guarantee 100% that after you read the book, you will be happy.

Going back sixteen years, President Hinckley gave a powerful talk  to the youth and young adults. He said” What a truly wonderful group you are. You speak various languages. You are all part of a great family. But you are also individuals, each with his or her problems, each wishing for answers to the things that perplex you and worry you. Your lives are filled with difficult decisions and with dreams and hopes and longings to find that which will bring you peace and happiness.

Once upon a time, long ago, I was your age. I didn’t worry about drugs or pornography because they were not available then. I worry about school and where it would lead. I worried about how to earn a living, who should I marry? Now, here you are on the threshold of your mature lives. You too worry about school. You worry about marriage. You worry about many things. I make you a promise that God will not forsake you if you will walk in His path with guidance of His commandments.

President Hinckley continued: This is the age of great opportunity. You are so fortunate to be alive. Never in the History of mankind has life been filled with so many opportunities and challenges. This is the season of an explosion of knowledge. Of course you face challenges. Every generation that has ever walked the earth has faced challenges but I believe…they are manageable.

President Hinckley maps out a path to happiness of six things to Be!

#1 Be grateful: Walk with gratitude in your hearts, my dear friends. Be thankful for the wonderful blessings which are yours. Be grateful for the tremendous opportunities that you have. Be thankful for your parents…let them know that you are grateful. Say thank you to your mother and your father. Say thank you to your teachers. Express appreciation to everyone who does you a favor or assist you in any way. Thank the Lord for His goodness to you.”

My next project is going to be taking an inventory of all the blessings we have received. I would recommend that you do the same. Basically,  take an inventory of your life and look specifically for the blessings large and small you have received. Even at times when things don’t seem to be going our way, we will find out that they are. Just give it some more time. I am going to get a notebook and I am going to find a quiet place to sit and start writing down all the blessings that I can think of. I am going to write them in a list, in no particular order, just listing everything that I can think of as it comes to my mind in this notebook. My goal is to filled up the pages with all the blessings I can recall. I want to capture all of them, even the smallest blessing of finding something I have lost after saying a prayer, to meeting certain people, to having certain opportunities, to the miracles that I have had come to my life. I am very excited to start this exercise tonight. Once I finish my list with every memory I can possibly think of, I am going to keep the notebook by my bed to look at on the difficult days that come to help me keep things in perspective. (Gratitude Journal)

#2 Be smart: The Lord wants you to educate your minds and hands, whatever your chosen field. Whether it be repairing refrigerators or the work of a skilled surgeon, you must train yourselves. Seek for the best schooling available. Become a workman of integrity in the world that lies ahead of you. I repeat, you will bring honor to the Church and you will be generously blessed because of that training.” I had the amazing opportunity of listening to President John Tanner who is the BYU- Hawaii President. He received his Doctorate from the University of California Berkley. He is very smart. He grew up next door to the library and has always read multiple books and even writes poetry. He even wrote Hymn # 138 “Blass Our Fast We Pray.”

 I love being in a room with incredible smart people. People who have had fabulous experiences and are willing to share them with others. Sister Tanner said: Make your homes be gospel learners centers. Learn from good books. What I was reminded mostly that day is how much I love to learn. I really do! I absolutely love it and when I learn new things, or explore new topics or broaden my horizons or see things in a new light I hadn’t seen it before. I Love It!! There is something so energizing about gaining intelligence. I highly recommend that you obtain an education and reach your potential. (My diploma)

#3 Be clean: We live in a world that is filled with filth…a world that reeks of evil. It is all around us. It is on the television screen. It is at the movies. It is in the popular literature. It is on the internet. Don’t waste your time in destructive entertainment. Do not fall in the trap of pornography. Avoid evil talk. Do not take the name of the Lord in vain…choose your friends carefully. It is they who will lead you in one direction or another. Everybody wants friends. Everybody needs friends. No one wishes to be without them. But never lose sight of the fact that it is your friends who will lead you along the paths that you will follow. while you should be friendly with all people, select with great care those whom you wish to have close to you…There is no need for any Latter-day Saint boy or girl to even try drugs. Stay clean from these mind-altering and habit forming addictions. One way I have maintain pure and virtuous throughout my life is to go to the temple. If you hold a temple recommend, by all means go. If you still don’t have a temple recommend, be worthy of obtaining a recommend. (Temple recommend)

#4 Be True: Be loyal to the Church under all circumstances. I make you a promise that the authorities of this Church will never lead you astray. They will lead you in paths of happiness… Be true to your own convictions. You know what is right, and you know what is wrong. You know when you are doing the proper thing, you know when you are giving strength to the right cause. Be loyal. Be faithful. Be true.

Sister Oscarson said: “True conversion is a process that takes place over a period of time and involves a willingness to exercise faith. It comes when we search the scriptures instead of the internet. It come when we are obedient to the commandments of God. Conversion comes when we served those around us, it comes from earnest prayer, regular temple attendance, and faithful fulfillment of our God given responsibilities. It takes consistency and daily effort.

She continued…I am often asked? “What is the greatest challenge our youth face today? I answer that I believe it is the ever present influence of the great and spacious building in their lives. If the Book of Mormon was written for our day, then surely we cannot miss the relevance for all of us of the messages in Lehi’s vision of the three of life and the effect of those pointing their fingers and taunting from the great and spacious building. What is most heartening to me is the description of those who have already fought their way through the mists of darkness on the strait and arrow path, have clung to the rod of iron, have reached their goal, and have begun tasting of the pure and delicious fruit of the tree of life. Then the scriptures says,  that those finely dressed people in the great and spacious building were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers toward those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit. “And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed because of those that were scoffing at them and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost.” These verses describe those of us who already have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. Whether we were born into it or had to fight our way through mists of darkness to find it, we have tasted of this fruit, which is most precious and most desirable and has the potential to bring us eternal life. The greatest of all gifts of God. We need only to keep feasting and not heed those who would make fun of our beliefs or those who delight to crate doubts or those who find fault with Church leaders and doctrine. It is a choice we make daily to choose faith over doubt. Elder Ballard has urged us to “Stay in the boat, use your life jackets and hold on with both hands. As members of the Church we are already in the boat. We don’t need to go searching through the philosophies of the world for truth that will give us comfort, help, and direction to get us safely through the trials of life. (scriptures)

Where do you find truth? We find it in the scriptures and by the mouth of our anointed leaders. Every six months we have the grand opportunity to listen to God speak through our Church leaders. Here is where you find truth. (Scriptures and pictures of all leaders)

#5 Be Humble: The Lord has said, “Be thou humble: and the Lord thy God lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers. D & C 112:10 I believe the meek and the humble are those who are teachable. They are willing to learn. They are willing to listen to the whisperings of the still, small voice for guidance in their lives. They place the wisdom of the Lord above their own wisdom.” From our earliest Primary days we are told that The Holy Ghost or also known as the Holy Spirit may stay with you as a constant companion if you are doing what is right. This is the most wonderful gift you would ever get from our Heavenly Father. So many gifts we get in life don’t last and many break or go out of style. This is not the case with the gift of the Holy Ghost. Learn to know when he is giving you guidance. Learn to know when he is warning you of something, learn to know when he is teaching you something. Learn to know when the Holy Ghost is comforting you of something. Learn to know when he is guiding your life. Every day pray for that spirit to guide everything you do and say. (gift)

#6 Be prayerful: “You need His help; you can’t do it alone. You will come to realize that and recognize that more and more as years pass. Get on your knees and thank Him for His goodness to you and express to Him the righteous desires of your heart. The miracle of it all is that He hears. He responds. He answers… not always as we might wish He would answer but there is no question in my mind that He answers.” I had a very special experience when the Holy Ghost had answer questions I had.  One question I had was: Does he know me? Does he care about me? Am I important to Him? I had many trails in my life that had me questioning if I really mattered to Him and so one day in the temple I felt of his love. There are no words to describe the feeling, I just knew in my heart that he loved me and loved everyone the same. I understood that he had no favorites. Like that there have been many teaching moments in my life. That type of real joy and happiness that is felt through the Holy Ghost has no description.

Two years ago Elder Holland gave a devotional to the BYU Idaho students on happiness. The title of his talk was Happiness is a quest! Is what we all want in this life!

 Drawing from the words of Joseph Smith, Elder Holland said: “Happiness is the object and design of our existence: and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it.” Elder Holland said: It is that worthy quest, universal for us all, that quest for happiness, that I wish to speak today. He stated: “Note that I said quest for happiness,” not necessarily happiness itself. Remember the Prophet Joseph’s choice of language: he spoke of the path that leads to happiness as the key to realizing that wonderfully worthy goal.”

Just as founders of the United States of America as well as philosophical leaders have declared “the pursuit of happiness” a “human right” of any individual can “live after the manner of happiness”

“We know one thing for sure” Elder Holland said. “Happiness is not easy to find running straight for it. It is usually too elusive… too subtle. If you haven’t learned it already, you will learn in the years ahead that most times happiness comes to us when we least expect it, when we are busy doing something else. Happiness is almost always a by-product of some other endeavor.”

The best chance for being happy is to do those things that come from the teachings of living the gospel. Elder Holland taught. “Live the way that happy people in the gospel live. Walk the path that happy people walk, and your chances to find joy in unexpected moments, to find peace in unexpected places, to find the help of angels when you didn’t even know they knew you existed improves exponentially.” Elder Holland shared a few ways individuals might live “after the manner of happiness”

First individuals must live the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Lots of other philosophies and systems of beliefs have been tried, he said. Indeed it seems safe to say virtually every other philosophy and system has been tried down through the centuries of history.”

Just as recorded in the scriptures when the Apostle Thomas asked the Lord the question many young people still ask today “How can we know the way? Elder Holland spoke of the eternally applicable answer Jesus gave when He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life… And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do… if ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.”

What an absolutely breathtaking promise from God! Elder Holland said. “He is saying, live my way, live my truth, live my life… Live in this manner that I am showing you and teaching you… and whatsoever you seek you will find, including happiness. Part of the blessing may come soon, parts may come later, and parts may not come until heaven, but they will come… all of them.”

Second, Elder Holland taught that individuals must learn as quickly as they can that so much of their happiness is in their hands, not in events or circumstances or fortune or misfortune. “We have a choice, we have agency, and we can choose if not happiness per se, then we can choose to live after the manner of it.”  He said. 

Using the example of Joseph Smith when he was in Liberty jail… a very unhappy situation for him as he was a victim of a great injustice and persecution… Elder Holland spoke of the Prophet’s ability to live “after the manner of happiness” as he focused on virtuous thoughts. Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly.”

Too often people think it is all up to the heart; It is not, Elder Holland taught. God expects a willing mind in the quest for happiness and peace as well. Put your head into this. All of this takes effort.”

Elder Holland said those people who are living after the manner of happiness are not passive. They think and speak and act positively and are kind and pleasant to be with.

“You can never build your happiness on someone else’s unhappiness.’ He said. Sometimes, maybe especially when we are young and insecure and trying to make our way up in the world, we think we can tear someone else down a little, it will somehow miraculously lift us up.”

This is what happy people are not… Happy people aren’t negative or cynical or mean, Elder Holland explained. “If my life has taught me anything it is that kindness and pleasantness and faith based optimism are characteristics of happy people.”

Related to being kind Elder Holland said that a step along the path toward happiness is to avoid animosity, contention and anger.

“Anger damages or destroys almost everything it touches,” He said. “ As someone has said, to harbor anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It is a vicious acid that will destroy the container long before it does damage to the intended object.”

Anger and other vices such as violence, rage, bitterness, and hate have nothing to do with living the gospel or the pursuit of happiness. He said.

The third suggestion Elder Holland shared was to be industrious. To work hard.

“If you want to be happy in school, at work, on a mission, or in a marriage, work at it! He said. Learn to work, Serve diligently. Don’t be idle or mischievous. A definition of Christ-like Character might be the integrity to do the right thing at the right time in the right way.” Have integrity in everything you do!

Any state that is “a state contrary to the nature of happiness” is the worst state for anyone to live in, he declared. Wickedness was never happiness. “I asked you to reject transgression in order to live consistently with the nature of God, which is the nature of true happiness, he said. “I encourage you and I applaud you in pursuing the path that leads to it. You can’t find it any other way. “

In closing I want to end with some words from the heart. Sister Crockett who is a missionary used to sing with the Tabernacle choir and told us in relief society that she was watching the teleprompter and saw that it wasn’t moving. Elder Holland was not reading but saying these words truly from his heart. “Brothers and sisters, do you have any idea, do you have any notion whatsoever of how much we love you? For ten hours you watch, fixed on one face at this pulpit, but for those same 10 hours, we seated behind this pulpit watch, fixed on you. You thrill us to the center of our soul, whether that be the 21000 here in the Conference Center, or multitudes in meetinghouses and chapels, or finally millions in homes around the globe, perhaps huddled around a family computer screen. Here you are, there you are, hour after hour, in your Sunday best, being your best. You sing and you pray. You listen and you believe. You are the miracle of this Church. And we love you!

I want to second what he said. We are here today because we also love you! And I leave you these words in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen!